The 62-year old billionaire businessman, who along with elder brother Shashi founded the group in Chennai in 1969, has been operating from the group's holding company Essar Global Holdings' corporate office in London's Berkeley Street for the past six months. Another senior official close to the Ruias, the former Essar Shipping managing director, Sanjay Mehta has been based in London for the past four years and some other senior executives have recently been shifted to the global office. Mr Ruia will also lead the group's attempts to acquire overseas assets, particularly oil and gas.

Ravi Ruia's son, Rewant Ruia, has recently been made the head of the group's North American operations, triggering speculation that he would also play a key role in the group's globalisation drive. The group's chairman, Shashi Ruia, and his sons Prashant and Anshuman will continue to be based in the 21-storey corporate headquarters, Essar House, in Mumbai, the first corporate headquarters in India to have a helipad.

Mr Ruia, who has bought a house in London, which is also home to businessmen of Indian origin such as steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and Anil Agarwal of Vedanta, resigned from the boards of Essar Shipping and Essar Oil on Thursday, in a possibility that he will concentrate on the global listing. "Mr Ravi Ruia has resigned from Essar Shipping and Essar Oil boards," said an Essar group spokesperson.

"It's exactly like Vedanta. It's easy to raise money, if you are in a financial centre like London," said an Essar group official who did not want to be quoted. Anil Agarwal of Vedanta shifted to London some years ago to raise cash for expansion of his mining business through a listing on the LSE. The Ruias want to raise money through equity as it has piled up debt of $7 billion and wants to raise $5 billion more to build power plants and buy global assets. Essar plans to treble the capacity of its refinery in Gujarat and increase the output of a steel plant at Hazira from 4.6 million tonnes to 10 million tonnes. "The refinery expansion is being funded through debts. There is clear focus on equity now," said an Essar Oil Official, requesting anonymity.

The group's total debt is at least $7 billion — about Rs 32,000 crore at current exchange rates. Though the ratio of its debt to equity is 1.2, not very high, it has a history of borrowing heavily from financial institutions in the early 90s, leading to a near-death experience. The Essar Group has two listed companies in India, Essar Oil and Essar Shipping. Essar Steel, which owns the Hazira plant, and Essar Power, which owns a 500-mw power plant in the same place, are both unlisted, the former having been recently delisted.

The group bought Canada-based Algoma Steel in 2007 and an iron ore mine in Minnesota the next year. Last month, it acquired Trinity Coal, thus locking up both the key raw materials needed to make steel. The group's business process outsourcing company Aegis, too, has a significant presence in North America.